1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wave energy collection systems and to a combined floating breakwater and energy collecting system for use offshore (including large inland bodies of water) to provide a protected moorage for tankers, fishing fleets and other vessels and to provide a protected work area for offshore mining, oil and gas drilling and other offshore operations.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It has long been recognized that waves are a significant potential source of energy. Various devices for relatively large scale wave energy collection have been suggested from time to time, but have not met with any real degree of commercial success. Many of these devices have been based on compressing and storing air as collected or after stepping up the air pressure by mechanical means. In the first instance, once the pressure of the storage tank has been raised an initial increment, small waves are no longer a contributor. In the second case, the means for stepping up the pressure consumes much of the energy.
It is believed that large scale wave energy collection systems suggested in the past have not only been inefficient, but have not shown economic justification because no other function was performed as a consequence of the energy collection or in conjunction therewith. Hence, the entire initial cost of the supporting structure for the energy collecting system had to be amortized against energy production. The present invention looks to the problem of safe water transport and transfer of oil as one means of economic justification for wave energy collection.
The risk of oil spills from tanker vessels has caused mounting opposition to the bringing of tankers into protected harbors and waterways. At the same time the ever increasing demands for oil and the dependence of most of the world for its oil on a relatively few oil producing regions, has resulted in a relatively rapid buildup of tanker fleets and larger vessels. For the United States, the problem of oil transport by water will shortly be compounded with the start-up of the Alaska pipeline and the need to move the oil by water from the southern terminal of the pipeline to West Coast points.
Offshore ocean oil terminals have been suggested as a possible solution including the building of islands by rock fill or in the form of structural platforms rigidly fixed to the ocean floor at relatively shallow offshore sites. This proposed island solution is estimated to be not only extremely expensive, but to present major design difficulties in terms of providing protected moorage for all wind directions and wave conditions. It also requires that energy be supplied to the island by underwater cable or that the island have a fuel consuming generating plant. The latter necessitates a fuel storage facility and a fuel delivery operation.